After Munstead BE90 I called out my physio to see Soap as I was sure he wasn’t right, and she identified that he had put himself out behind, he was treated and my trainer Amanda Brewer and I monitored his movement very carefully in our next few lessons and were happy that he had made a full recovery, and Larkhill was a go go! We had day before dressage and Soap did a cracking test, it felt like his best yet, really consistent, no freak outs, and very accurate. I was really pleased with his performance, and even more so when I realised that our score of 35.5 had put us 5th after the dressage! Beating his recent personal best of 7th after the dressage at Moreton.
Sunday we were first in the SJ ring as I was the first rider in the section, and I was focusing on keeping my nerves at bay which wasn’t easy when at 8.00am a 15min delay was announced! eeeke! Our time came and we went in, the course caused carnage there were only 15 clears out of 41 riders in my section and Soap did a really good round to have just 2 down. I was really pleased as the ground was very undulating with small dips and lumps which constantly threw a horse’s stride off balance, so for him to cope so well on the ground was a mega improvement on last year’s Larkhill when we had 4 down.
We set off to sample the delights of the new XC course, and it didn’t disappoint. I thought there were a few fairly meaty fences for an intro, I think they might have used a ‘special measuring stick’ for the first parallel rails! Soap felt fab warming up, and he just cruised round the course taking all the short routes and bounding home clear, he is a dream to ride XC. We went to check the scores and I was lying 7th with still approx 2/3s of the results to go up. It looked like we would be just outside of the placings so we went back to the xc with an ice cream to watch some of the action. When we returned to my absolute shock we had a big red 10th place next to my name! I just caught the end of the prize giving, and ran over to collect my rosette absolutely over the moon. I was grinning like a Cheshire cat for the rest of the day until I checked my results later online…
It seems that there was another competitor on the same total as me, but with a slower (so nearer the optimum) XC time, and he had been placed 10th and me bumped down to 11th. I was so down hearted to see this it has taken 3 season to get a sniff of a placing and just when I think we have succeeded it gets taken away on a technicality. I totally agree with the decision, and after all Soap doesn’t know he wasn’t placed he gets pats and polos whatever the result.
Ho hum…next time…